Iowa State AIDS Researcher Admits To Falsifying Findings

theodp writes "'With countless lives depending on their work,' writes Brett Smith, 'it seems unthinkable that AIDS researchers might falsify their work. However, that's just what Iowa State University assistant professor Dong-Pyou Han has admitted to, according to federal documents.' Han resigned from the project in October after admitting to tampering with samples to give the appearance that an experimental vaccine was causing lab animals to build up protections against HIV. According to the NIH, Han apparently spiked rabbit blood with human blood components from people whose bodies had produced antibodies to HIV. 'This positive result was striking, and it caught everybody's attention,' said the NIH. However, researchers at other institutions became suspicious after they were unsuccessful in duplicating the ISU results. The Iowa State AIDS research project had been awarded $19 million in federal grants over the past several years. Han has agreed to be banned from participating in any federally-financed research for three years."

Comments

Wait, 3-year ban?

[Ecuador]

For many researches it takes more than 3-years to get a federal grant (if they don't falsify results that is), how is a 3-year ban from federally-financed research any sort of punishment for such dishonesty?

Re:Wait, 3-year ban?

[martinux]

It's a defacto lifetime ban. Short of moving to another country he will have the stigma of this for as long as he tries to get a job in science. Any research he previously reported will now be subject to significant scrutiny.

Just imagine him, or anyone attached to a group he's attached to, trying to get future federal funding; "We've decided to turn down your application for [insert any reason]."

He's now a liability to any university or research group. The only people who might hire him are some unscrupulous company who need a yes-man who will provide 'sympathetic' findings. Even then the work will most likely be under a pseudonym and will have to survive all of the extra scrutiny a 'sponsored' research study gets.

Thankfully, science is a self-correcting mechanism as this uncovering has demonstrated.

Re:Wait, 3-year ban?

[martinux]

I would agree to an extent that quantity of research is being pushed as the be all and end all (as Prof. Higgs lamented). In the UK people are attending university to get a sheet of paper that proves their marketability. There are an increasing number of 'fluff' degrees requiring an increasing number of lecturers who can teach 'fluff' who are being pushed to prove that their fluff not only is valuable fluff but is the best fluff by the accountants and marketers running the universities. As a result you get researchers pushing out reams of crap in journals with low impacts simply to give the illusion of productivity and allow marketers to print a long list of studies beside their photos in university profile pages.

The knock on result is that all researchers are being pressured to publish an equivalent number of papers as anything less just proves they're lazy and unproductive in comparison to the fluff producers by bureaucrats who equate all studies as equal.

You're nodding along with me now as I'm painting a pretty bleak picture that agrees with your assessment. However, your blanket statement that nobody cares about research quality is profoundly incorrect. I know many many scientists who get their work done despite the aforementioned pressures and who 'care'. I know it's easy to tar everyone with the same brush but many of us are still doing science because we want to learn and report new things.

Taking a cynical view is easy but as TFA points out, there are more than enough people that care ensuring that fabrications are discovered.

Re:The university should have to pay back the gran

[Coeurderoy]

...Getting caught cheating in a professional field where people's lives are at state should be a capitol offense.

You got that right, this is the kind of offense regularly done at the Capitol..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol

Re:Unconscionable

[jma05]

It likely that this is just a standard procedure which fits the general category. Since this is pretty eggregious, I doubt that he will ever get a research grant again. For one, he will need to be a part of a research institution to get a grant. Which research university will hire him now, given the competitiveness of these positions? He might be able able to teach in some low level place, but his research career has ended.

Re:Unconscionable

[jovius]

Well, surely lives should not depend on unverified and non-peer reviewed research as the summary sensationally implies. Because of the due process the falsified results were revealed before any actual danger. Most likely the falsified results were also publicized for immediate consumption well before any verification, which actually created new ground for false hopes.

Not all Koreans cheat

[Taco Cowboy]

Dr. Dong-Pyou Han is a Korean.

He cheated.

So was Dr. Woo-suk Hwang, who fake the data on cloning back in 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk

Koreans can never be trusted.

Never !

While it's true that both Dr. Hwang and Dr. Han are Koreans, not all Koreans are cheaters.

Similarly, not all non-Koreans are non-cheaters either.

But I sense something terribly wrong in the set-up at Iowa State U.

You see, Dr. Han's immediate superior is Dr. Michael Cho, and as the supervisor of Dr. Han, Dr. Cho has failed to keep a close eyes on the researches being carried out by his subordinates.

And while Dr. Han has had his wrist slightly slapped (only ban for 3 year). Dr. Cho, the boss, never was reprimanded for his own dereliction of duty.

Re:Poor Han

[Samantha Wright]

It's not. After this no one will touch him; his career as a researcher is over. For professors, three years of no federal grants is generally enough to kill the entire lab, and a three-year lapse in publishing is enough to kill any career on its own, with the possible exception of the most hard-boiled tenure.

Criminal fraud?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I don't understand why he's not being charged with criminal fraud.

Re:Poor Han

[fuzznutz]

Principal investigators are paid fairly well. Research assistants and technicians might not. A good PI brings in millions of dollars to a state university and that is how they fill those budget voids. Our research overhead is 55%. That is money taken right off the top for the privilege of working in a university owned lab building. All equipment and supplies come out of the rest. Those grants need a good PI name to get funded.